Shelby + Al 4evah
Jul. 23rd, 2010 07:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shelbyrouIt is currently Fri Jul 23 2010.
Currently the moon is in the waxing Full (Ahroun) Moon phase (80% full).
Elson Avenue, Downtown
On the western edge of this stretch of road, Eleventh and Twelfth Streets, the neighborhoods are quiet, a quiet of fear more than calm, to judge by the occasional broken glass of a window and other signs of crime or violence. A street or two eastwards, movie theaters, restaurants, and more stores begin, and much further, stretching from Ninth most of the way to Fourth, are bars with rooms above them with stairways to the street, movie theaters of dubious repute, and women in red lace or fishnet strolling along the sidewalks, near the stairways. On occasion, a man is seen, too, flashily dressed with too much jewelry.
Obvious exits:
Bus Station Red Mill Apartments East West South
"Don't wear nothin' too flashy," was Al's main instruction before picking Shelby up from the country house. That along with a warning: "And by god if you flip out I will fuckin' skin you," delivered with a scowl to remind the cub of the moon's fullness. The car ride into the city -- specifically what could nicely be described as the 'economically challenged' section of the city -- is generally silent but for the crooning of the Carpenters, though eventually the brooding Noo Yawk Fang offers this up: "I'll be fuckin' honest with ya. You got a lot of shit goin' against ya and I don't think you got it in ya to do the kind of shit I do. Only thing you got goin', I figure, is that you know how ta be human more'n most cubs." He turns a corner onto a quietly menacing part of Elson Avenue. "But you're still a princess." He pulls over to the curb and parks.
It may have taken Shelby a couple of tries to find an acceptably un-flashy outfit, but eventually she's nodded into the car, and spends most of the trip leaning casually up against the passenger door, her hands folded demurely in her lap. She says, "Yes, Al-rhya," and "No, Al-rhya," as appropriate, tries not to wince too obviously as Karen warbles about how she's still crazy after all these years, and generally keeps quiet. "Maybe," she agrees as he pulls over. "You're probably right, that I won't have to do this sort of thing. It's still good to know that it is happening." Maybe, her askance look out the window suggests, next time it could happen in a better part of town.
Al seems to catch not only that look, but what it implies. He scowls. "You wanna learn high-society crap, talk to Zosia." He peers out the windshield, frowning, then digs out his wallet and pulls out a crisp twenty. "Okay, so, here's how it's gonna go down. You're gonna go out there, talk to that spic in the red jersey, y'see him?" The kid in question looks to be about sixteen; his shirt is huge and his pants are worn below-the-ass. His white sneakers are impeccable. "You're gonna buy some junk from him. An' you're gonna watch him. Watch who he goes to, where he goes, where whoever he talks to goes. You're gonna be subtle about it. An' when you come back here with the shit, you're gonna tell me where you think he's hidin' his stash. Clear?"
Shelby sends a look over but refrains from saying anything about high-society. Or anything, really, only nods, frowning intently, and accepts the twenty along with her instructions. "That's what I should ask for? 'Junk'? What if he moves out of my sight? Should I follow him?" Hopelessly naive she might be, but at least she's willing to listen. The bill is folded into quarters, edges smoothed with a fingernail to make them snap, and tucked into her front skirt pocket.
Al rolls his eyes a little. "Tell 'im you wanna get high. Every one of these little dipshits has their own brand. It's no fuckin' different from any other kind of shopping. You oughta be good at this." Somehow, he makes it sound derogatory. "And, yeah, you can follow him... if you want him and his buddies to kick your ass." He shrugs. "Honestly? I don't think you're gonna figure it out, where he's hidin' it. I wanna mostly see how you do. This shit, it's like anythin' else. Y'gotta learn by doing."
"I want to get high," Shelby repeats seriously, and nods. There's a frown as he continues, but it's a stubborn one, like she plans on cracking a drug ring just to prove him wrong. "Right." Another girding-the-loins nod and she slips out of the car, tugs her clothes wrinkle-free, and heads for the boy. She tries for matter-of-fact but slinks too much to entirely pull it off; considering that she's dressed more for the mall than the street it probably doesn't make her stick out any more than she already would. She hovers around the edges for a few moments before stepping in, offering him a nervously bright smile and a, "Hi."
The young dealer returns the smile with a broad grin, visibly looking Shelby over. "Hey, girl, whassup? You lookin' for a good time?"
"Yes," the Fang answers promptly. Too promptly, maybe, for she immediately goes on, "No. --I mean," here she steps just a few inches closer and turns up the watt on her smile, "I want to get high. Do you know where I can find something?"
The dealer smirks, but it's not entirely unkind. "Your first time, huh?" It's not really a question. "Good thing y'came t'me, girl, 'cause I got all the good shit. I got Diamond in the Raw, I got Sugar Beets, I got SupaJay, I got it all. Whachoo lookin' for?" He might be a teenage thug, but his patter is smooth and friendly; the kid's a born pitchman.
The Fang neither confirms nor denies his supposition, but licks her lips instead, eyes bright. "I thought you might. Know." The list of his products swims by without so much as a blink of recognition. "Um...? I don't know. I want to go flying. What do you recommend? I don't have a lot of money." Like he's a sommelier.
The dealer scratches his nose, looking her over like he doesn't quite believe her. "How much you got?"
Shelby glances left, glances right, and turns those big blue eyes at the boy again. "I only have a twenty."
"I got you." The boy's still a little disbelieving, but he's willing to go along with it, and his smile's still friendly. He turns to a younger kid -- maybe thirteen -- who's been sitting on a step nearby and snaps his fingers. "Yo, Blue, gemme a pack of those MelloYellos." As the kid gets up and slouches off, looking bored, the dealer turns back to Shelby. "Mellos're real easy," he assures her. "Make you fly, take you down smooth. It's, like, a bomb, but a newbie bomb, yanno?"
Shelby's hand unconsciously goes to the pocket where the bill lies even her eyes flick to Blue. "He's kind of young, isn't she?" she asks doubtfully, looking back at the dealer for confirmation. "Are you sure he's going to bring the right thing?" She must be worried about her possible future trip, right? "Oh, and I've done lots of things before. Stuff. Bombs." A good liar, she isn't.
"Hey, babe, it's cool. You don't gotta fake it." The dealer hitches up his pants and leans against the wall he's near. "You don't gotta worry about Blue, either. He's my cousin." Blue heads past a pawn shop and turns the corner into an alley, disappearing from view. His older cousin, meanwhile, continues a friendly chatter with Shelby. "You a college girl, right?"
"What?" Lower lip caught in her teeth Shelby turns back from watching Blue, and smiles prettily at her new friend again. "Oh, you can tell? Yes, I'm going to... SCCU. Pre-law." There's hardly a flinch at all, there and gone again. "I got a scholarship. What about you?"
The dealer chuckles. "Nah, I'm a workin' man." He doesn't even look like he needs to shave every day. "My girlfriend's a college girl, though. Humanities." Blue remains out of view.
"Oh? What's her name?" Shelby asks curiously, just as though they'd met over lattes at a Starbucks. "Maybe I'll run into her. I'm supposed to start Fall semester. I haven't been to the campus yet - we move in in a few weeks." She glances after where Blue's disappeared to but without any real urgency.
"Krista. I'm Hawk, by the way." He glances back over his shoulder in time to see Blue round the corner again and slouch toward them. Satisfied, he turns back to Shelby and grins. "What's your name, babe?"
Shelby says, "I'll look for her," as though she has a hope in hell of finding one girl on SCCU's campus with only a first name to go on. Druggies. "Hawk? That's really...," it takes her a moment to think, but when she does she brightens again. "Strong. Oh, I'm Anne." She even offers him her hand - to shake, not to kiss. That's something.
Hawk, grinning, shakes hands. The kid has a good firm one. "Nice t'meet 'cha, Anne." Almost without turning, he takes the small, paper-wrapped plastic package from the thirteen-year-old gofer (who immediately slouches sullenly back to his previous spot) and exchanges it for Shelby's twenty. The brightly yellow label mimics that of the soda it's named after. "Done an' done. Satisfaction guarenteed." He laughs briefly.
"I'll be back," Shelby promises, eyes twinkling at her successful score. "Thanks, Hawk." She makes it back to Al's car without either skipping or taking a test drive, though she does send another quick look and wave back over her shoulder. She's certainly in a much better mood than when this little transaction started. Closing the car door, she offers the bag to the older ragabash and starts to buckle up. "I got it." In case he hadn't noticed.
Al drives off, leaving Hawk and his cousin Blue behind. "Yeah, I saw." The older Ragabash eyes her sidelong, and for a wonder he's actually smiling a little. Okay, smirking. "So? Report."
Shelby considers him for a moment, thinking. "He uses the younger boy - he says it was his cousin - as a... um. A runner, I think they're called? He can't keep it that far away, because we weren't talking that long. If these alleys go all the way through, then it might be on the next block, but not too far from the alleyway and not that far inside. If they don't, then it's somewhere in the alley or in a place attached to it. I don't think he had enough time to climb all the way to the roof and get back down, but maybe." She shrugs, but she doesn't sound like she's finished.
Al keeps driving. He's heading east, back toward the bridge and the country. "G'wan."
"He said he had lots of different types of drugs," she continues obediently, after licking her lips. "I didn't recognize any of them but this one's called MelloYello. He said it was 'real easy'. His name's Hawk, by the way, and he says he has a girlfriend at SCCU called Krista."
Al grunts. "It's like anything else that gets sold. Brand names. Most people like to stick to the shit they know. Just, yanno, there ain't no regulations." He glances at the small package with disinterest. "Looks like he liked you pretty well, huh?"
The cub shrugs again and looks out the window. "He didn't pull a gun on me, anyway. I told him my name was Anne." After a second she looks back at him, curious. "So now what? Are you going to keep an eye on him, or try to shut him down, or what?"
Al blinks, then barks a laugh. "Shut him down? Fuck why? Another kid'll just replace him. 'Long as people need a fix, there's gonna be people to buy and there's gonna be people to sell. Way of the world." He shrugs. "Guys like him, though, are useful. They hear stuff, they know stuff, they can find stuff for ya, and they don't snitch to the cops. They ain't part of the War, no more'n any other human, but they can help you irregardless."
Shelby colors faintly and unnecessarily smoothes the hem of her skirt, making it lay just that much flatter. "I don't know. That's why I asked. So you want to... make him an informer, sort of? See if there's anything unusual happening that he knows of." Right path or wrong, she's heading down it, voice strengthening as she gains confidence. "You're not competition, so he'll talk to you, especially if you buy something from him every so often. Like... that." Her eyes go back to the bag. "What's in it, do you think?"
Al shrugs. "Kid, this was just a test. I wanted t'see how you'd do. An' I think he'd talk t'you a lot more than he'd talk t'me." He glances at her and smirks. "I ain't a cute little girl, yanno?" He's across the bridge by now. "For what it's worth... you did a'right. You got, I dunno, mebbe some potential." Probably the highest praise he's ever given.
Looking out the window again she shifts in her seat and plucks at her skirt again but doesn't protest as they leave civilization's siren song. Her, "Thank you," is edged with prim, but a moment later she softens enough to look back at him, thoughtful. "Thank you. I think Tim-rhya does that too - I think he has a bunch of people he keeps track of so he knows what's going on."
Al nods. "Like I said, you got that goin' for ya. You know how ta be human. Lotta Garou don't." He spends the rest of the trip talking about illegal drugs -- their effects, how they get mixed, how they get distributed and sold.
Currently the moon is in the waxing Full (Ahroun) Moon phase (80% full).
Elson Avenue, Downtown
On the western edge of this stretch of road, Eleventh and Twelfth Streets, the neighborhoods are quiet, a quiet of fear more than calm, to judge by the occasional broken glass of a window and other signs of crime or violence. A street or two eastwards, movie theaters, restaurants, and more stores begin, and much further, stretching from Ninth most of the way to Fourth, are bars with rooms above them with stairways to the street, movie theaters of dubious repute, and women in red lace or fishnet strolling along the sidewalks, near the stairways. On occasion, a man is seen, too, flashily dressed with too much jewelry.
Obvious exits:
Bus Station Red Mill Apartments East West South
"Don't wear nothin' too flashy," was Al's main instruction before picking Shelby up from the country house. That along with a warning: "And by god if you flip out I will fuckin' skin you," delivered with a scowl to remind the cub of the moon's fullness. The car ride into the city -- specifically what could nicely be described as the 'economically challenged' section of the city -- is generally silent but for the crooning of the Carpenters, though eventually the brooding Noo Yawk Fang offers this up: "I'll be fuckin' honest with ya. You got a lot of shit goin' against ya and I don't think you got it in ya to do the kind of shit I do. Only thing you got goin', I figure, is that you know how ta be human more'n most cubs." He turns a corner onto a quietly menacing part of Elson Avenue. "But you're still a princess." He pulls over to the curb and parks.
It may have taken Shelby a couple of tries to find an acceptably un-flashy outfit, but eventually she's nodded into the car, and spends most of the trip leaning casually up against the passenger door, her hands folded demurely in her lap. She says, "Yes, Al-rhya," and "No, Al-rhya," as appropriate, tries not to wince too obviously as Karen warbles about how she's still crazy after all these years, and generally keeps quiet. "Maybe," she agrees as he pulls over. "You're probably right, that I won't have to do this sort of thing. It's still good to know that it is happening." Maybe, her askance look out the window suggests, next time it could happen in a better part of town.
Al seems to catch not only that look, but what it implies. He scowls. "You wanna learn high-society crap, talk to Zosia." He peers out the windshield, frowning, then digs out his wallet and pulls out a crisp twenty. "Okay, so, here's how it's gonna go down. You're gonna go out there, talk to that spic in the red jersey, y'see him?" The kid in question looks to be about sixteen; his shirt is huge and his pants are worn below-the-ass. His white sneakers are impeccable. "You're gonna buy some junk from him. An' you're gonna watch him. Watch who he goes to, where he goes, where whoever he talks to goes. You're gonna be subtle about it. An' when you come back here with the shit, you're gonna tell me where you think he's hidin' his stash. Clear?"
Shelby sends a look over but refrains from saying anything about high-society. Or anything, really, only nods, frowning intently, and accepts the twenty along with her instructions. "That's what I should ask for? 'Junk'? What if he moves out of my sight? Should I follow him?" Hopelessly naive she might be, but at least she's willing to listen. The bill is folded into quarters, edges smoothed with a fingernail to make them snap, and tucked into her front skirt pocket.
Al rolls his eyes a little. "Tell 'im you wanna get high. Every one of these little dipshits has their own brand. It's no fuckin' different from any other kind of shopping. You oughta be good at this." Somehow, he makes it sound derogatory. "And, yeah, you can follow him... if you want him and his buddies to kick your ass." He shrugs. "Honestly? I don't think you're gonna figure it out, where he's hidin' it. I wanna mostly see how you do. This shit, it's like anythin' else. Y'gotta learn by doing."
"I want to get high," Shelby repeats seriously, and nods. There's a frown as he continues, but it's a stubborn one, like she plans on cracking a drug ring just to prove him wrong. "Right." Another girding-the-loins nod and she slips out of the car, tugs her clothes wrinkle-free, and heads for the boy. She tries for matter-of-fact but slinks too much to entirely pull it off; considering that she's dressed more for the mall than the street it probably doesn't make her stick out any more than she already would. She hovers around the edges for a few moments before stepping in, offering him a nervously bright smile and a, "Hi."
The young dealer returns the smile with a broad grin, visibly looking Shelby over. "Hey, girl, whassup? You lookin' for a good time?"
"Yes," the Fang answers promptly. Too promptly, maybe, for she immediately goes on, "No. --I mean," here she steps just a few inches closer and turns up the watt on her smile, "I want to get high. Do you know where I can find something?"
The dealer smirks, but it's not entirely unkind. "Your first time, huh?" It's not really a question. "Good thing y'came t'me, girl, 'cause I got all the good shit. I got Diamond in the Raw, I got Sugar Beets, I got SupaJay, I got it all. Whachoo lookin' for?" He might be a teenage thug, but his patter is smooth and friendly; the kid's a born pitchman.
The Fang neither confirms nor denies his supposition, but licks her lips instead, eyes bright. "I thought you might. Know." The list of his products swims by without so much as a blink of recognition. "Um...? I don't know. I want to go flying. What do you recommend? I don't have a lot of money." Like he's a sommelier.
The dealer scratches his nose, looking her over like he doesn't quite believe her. "How much you got?"
Shelby glances left, glances right, and turns those big blue eyes at the boy again. "I only have a twenty."
"I got you." The boy's still a little disbelieving, but he's willing to go along with it, and his smile's still friendly. He turns to a younger kid -- maybe thirteen -- who's been sitting on a step nearby and snaps his fingers. "Yo, Blue, gemme a pack of those MelloYellos." As the kid gets up and slouches off, looking bored, the dealer turns back to Shelby. "Mellos're real easy," he assures her. "Make you fly, take you down smooth. It's, like, a bomb, but a newbie bomb, yanno?"
Shelby's hand unconsciously goes to the pocket where the bill lies even her eyes flick to Blue. "He's kind of young, isn't she?" she asks doubtfully, looking back at the dealer for confirmation. "Are you sure he's going to bring the right thing?" She must be worried about her possible future trip, right? "Oh, and I've done lots of things before. Stuff. Bombs." A good liar, she isn't.
"Hey, babe, it's cool. You don't gotta fake it." The dealer hitches up his pants and leans against the wall he's near. "You don't gotta worry about Blue, either. He's my cousin." Blue heads past a pawn shop and turns the corner into an alley, disappearing from view. His older cousin, meanwhile, continues a friendly chatter with Shelby. "You a college girl, right?"
"What?" Lower lip caught in her teeth Shelby turns back from watching Blue, and smiles prettily at her new friend again. "Oh, you can tell? Yes, I'm going to... SCCU. Pre-law." There's hardly a flinch at all, there and gone again. "I got a scholarship. What about you?"
The dealer chuckles. "Nah, I'm a workin' man." He doesn't even look like he needs to shave every day. "My girlfriend's a college girl, though. Humanities." Blue remains out of view.
"Oh? What's her name?" Shelby asks curiously, just as though they'd met over lattes at a Starbucks. "Maybe I'll run into her. I'm supposed to start Fall semester. I haven't been to the campus yet - we move in in a few weeks." She glances after where Blue's disappeared to but without any real urgency.
"Krista. I'm Hawk, by the way." He glances back over his shoulder in time to see Blue round the corner again and slouch toward them. Satisfied, he turns back to Shelby and grins. "What's your name, babe?"
Shelby says, "I'll look for her," as though she has a hope in hell of finding one girl on SCCU's campus with only a first name to go on. Druggies. "Hawk? That's really...," it takes her a moment to think, but when she does she brightens again. "Strong. Oh, I'm Anne." She even offers him her hand - to shake, not to kiss. That's something.
Hawk, grinning, shakes hands. The kid has a good firm one. "Nice t'meet 'cha, Anne." Almost without turning, he takes the small, paper-wrapped plastic package from the thirteen-year-old gofer (who immediately slouches sullenly back to his previous spot) and exchanges it for Shelby's twenty. The brightly yellow label mimics that of the soda it's named after. "Done an' done. Satisfaction guarenteed." He laughs briefly.
"I'll be back," Shelby promises, eyes twinkling at her successful score. "Thanks, Hawk." She makes it back to Al's car without either skipping or taking a test drive, though she does send another quick look and wave back over her shoulder. She's certainly in a much better mood than when this little transaction started. Closing the car door, she offers the bag to the older ragabash and starts to buckle up. "I got it." In case he hadn't noticed.
Al drives off, leaving Hawk and his cousin Blue behind. "Yeah, I saw." The older Ragabash eyes her sidelong, and for a wonder he's actually smiling a little. Okay, smirking. "So? Report."
Shelby considers him for a moment, thinking. "He uses the younger boy - he says it was his cousin - as a... um. A runner, I think they're called? He can't keep it that far away, because we weren't talking that long. If these alleys go all the way through, then it might be on the next block, but not too far from the alleyway and not that far inside. If they don't, then it's somewhere in the alley or in a place attached to it. I don't think he had enough time to climb all the way to the roof and get back down, but maybe." She shrugs, but she doesn't sound like she's finished.
Al keeps driving. He's heading east, back toward the bridge and the country. "G'wan."
"He said he had lots of different types of drugs," she continues obediently, after licking her lips. "I didn't recognize any of them but this one's called MelloYello. He said it was 'real easy'. His name's Hawk, by the way, and he says he has a girlfriend at SCCU called Krista."
Al grunts. "It's like anything else that gets sold. Brand names. Most people like to stick to the shit they know. Just, yanno, there ain't no regulations." He glances at the small package with disinterest. "Looks like he liked you pretty well, huh?"
The cub shrugs again and looks out the window. "He didn't pull a gun on me, anyway. I told him my name was Anne." After a second she looks back at him, curious. "So now what? Are you going to keep an eye on him, or try to shut him down, or what?"
Al blinks, then barks a laugh. "Shut him down? Fuck why? Another kid'll just replace him. 'Long as people need a fix, there's gonna be people to buy and there's gonna be people to sell. Way of the world." He shrugs. "Guys like him, though, are useful. They hear stuff, they know stuff, they can find stuff for ya, and they don't snitch to the cops. They ain't part of the War, no more'n any other human, but they can help you irregardless."
Shelby colors faintly and unnecessarily smoothes the hem of her skirt, making it lay just that much flatter. "I don't know. That's why I asked. So you want to... make him an informer, sort of? See if there's anything unusual happening that he knows of." Right path or wrong, she's heading down it, voice strengthening as she gains confidence. "You're not competition, so he'll talk to you, especially if you buy something from him every so often. Like... that." Her eyes go back to the bag. "What's in it, do you think?"
Al shrugs. "Kid, this was just a test. I wanted t'see how you'd do. An' I think he'd talk t'you a lot more than he'd talk t'me." He glances at her and smirks. "I ain't a cute little girl, yanno?" He's across the bridge by now. "For what it's worth... you did a'right. You got, I dunno, mebbe some potential." Probably the highest praise he's ever given.
Looking out the window again she shifts in her seat and plucks at her skirt again but doesn't protest as they leave civilization's siren song. Her, "Thank you," is edged with prim, but a moment later she softens enough to look back at him, thoughtful. "Thank you. I think Tim-rhya does that too - I think he has a bunch of people he keeps track of so he knows what's going on."
Al nods. "Like I said, you got that goin' for ya. You know how ta be human. Lotta Garou don't." He spends the rest of the trip talking about illegal drugs -- their effects, how they get mixed, how they get distributed and sold.